Call Me Russell: Inside the Outside

By Russell Peters

The unvarnished life story of stand-up comedian Russell Peters: up close and personal, poignant and entertaining

Russell Peters performs to sell-out stadium crowds around the world, poking fun at race, culture, his immigrant family, and anything else he sets in his sights on. In this candid memoir, he chronicles his life from humble beginnings as a scrawny, bullied, brown kid with ADD growing up in an immigrant family in Canada through his remarkable rise to become one of the world's most beloved, top-earning comics. He has been called Indo-Canadian, Anglo-Indian, South-Asian, South-Asian-Canadian, and, of course, totally hilarious, but in this book you will meet the real Russell Peters, both the comic and the man. You can call him Russell.

• Charts Russell Peters' incredible rise to become one of the biggest standup comics in the world today
• Shares personal details and stories, from heartfelt memories of Peters' family and childhood to his experience with prejudice, trade secrets about the business of comedy, and life in Hollywood
• Includes more than 100 photographs, including many never-before-seen images from Peters' family albums

• Language: English
• Publisher: Turner Publishing Company
• Release date: Apr 5, 2012
• ISBN: 9781118283530

Book preview

PART ONE

FAMILY MATTERS

WHITE PEOPLE—PLEASE BEAT YOUR KIDS. . . . I’LL TELL YOU WHY

When I was growing up, I hung out with mostly black kids, but every now and then, some white kid would come and hang out with us, and we’d be like, Wow! A white kid! I’ve heard so much about you! But the problem was that when a white kid would show up, we’d all want to be like the white kid, and eventually, we’d start taking the white kid’s advice on how to deal with our parents.

I remember hanging out with this little white boy, Ryan, when I was ten years old. I went to his house after school one day. His parents never beat him and they never even yelled at him. He could do anything he wanted and nothing was going to happen to him. We walked into his house after school one day and his mom says, Ryan, go clean your room.

Ryan says, FUCK YOU, BITCH!

I go, Ryan, you can’t talk to your mom like that!

Yes I can. She’s a JACKASS.

Don’t say that, man. She’ll hit you.

Then Ryan says, No she won’t. She not allowed to.

I’m like, What are you talking about? My parents hit me.

Well the next time they try that, you tell them to fuck off.

Are you sure?

Trust me. It works for me.

So I went home . . . for the last time. I walked into the house and Dad goes, Russell, come and do the dishes.

Fuck you, Dad!

Dad says, What the hell did you say to me?! Do I look like Ryan’s mom? SOMEBODY gonna get a-hurt real bad.

That was dad’s threat right before he beat me. I hated that threat. You know why? Because he’d always say somebody. He’d never tell you it was you. You knew it was you, but he’d give you this hope that it wasn’t. In the back of my head, I’m thinking, Please please let it be my brother.

When I saw that little brat Ryan a few days later at school, I was like, Hey, your little plan the other day almost got me killed.

Ah, sorry, dude. I forgot to tell you the other part. If your dad’s still going to hit you, threaten to call Children’s Aid.

I ask, Why?

Because if you phone Children’s Aid, your dad’s going to get in trouble. You don’t even have to call, just pretend. It will scare the crap out of him.

So I’m ten years old, and someone’s telling me I can scare the crap out of my dad. That’s like finding kryptonite. I thought I’d try it.

The next time I was about to take a beating, I stopped my dad and said, DON’T DO IT! I’ll phone Children’s Aid. Ever had your parents call your bluff?

You’ll do what? Dad says.

I’ll phone Children’s Aid.

Is that right. . . . Well, let me get you the phone, tough guy.

Dad, what are you doing? If I phone Children’s Aid, you’ll get in trouble.

I might get in a little bit of trouble, but I know that it’s going to take them twenty-two minutes to get here. In that time, SOMEBODY gonna get a-hurt real bad!

CHAPTER 1

CALL ME RUSSELL

I’M NEVER just a comic. No matter how people describe me, there’s always something before my name or my profession. There’s always that hyphen: South-Asian comic, Indo-Canadian comic, South-Asian-Canadian comic, Canadian-born-Indian comic, Brampton-raised stand-up comic. Obviously, I’m not the first stand-up comic in the world, but I know that I’m the first stand-up who looks like me, and the first to have done some of the things I’ve done. I guess that’s what happens when you’re the first at something . . . people think it needs to be qualified by something else. To my friends and family, though, there’s no hyphen. They just call me Russell.

To me, I’m just a comedian who happens to be Indian . . . or wait, Canadian . . . or Indo-Canadian . . . Anglo-Indian, South-Asian, South-Asian-Canadian? Jeez, even I’m confused.

Both of my parents are Anglo-Indian. Both of their parents were Anglo-Indian, and before that one of their great-grandfathers or great-great-grandfathers was British, Welsh, Scottish, or Irish—one of those ishes. That’s what it is to be an Anglo-Indian. Somewhere in your genes is a British father and an Indian mother. Anglo-Indians, or AI’s, mixed with the British when they occupied India. That’s why my name is Russell Peters instead of something you’d be more likely to expect for a guy who looks like me, both of whose parents were born in India. Anglo-Indians come in all shades—from blond-haired and blue-eyed to dark-skinned with very traditional Indian features.

To my friends and family, there’s no hyphen. They just call me Russell.

Anglo-Indians are a very small, unique community, as well as a dying one, a remnant from the Raj. My cousins have surnames like Brown, Page, Waike, and Matthias and first names like Mikey, Gordon, Bruce, Andrew, Patty, Tina, Ann, Claire, Stephen, Tanya, Marissa, Darren, Charlene . . . I still get some flak from older Anglo-Indians because I usually just say I’m Indian instead of specifying that I’m Anglo-Indian. That’s a bit of a thing for AI’s—you’ve got to be specific about saying that you’re one of them. They don’t necessarily see themselves as Indian, nor do they see themselves as English, just as the Indians don’t see them as Indian and the English don’t see them as English. The way I see it, once you cross the ocean, nobody cares what subset or group you come from. Once you’re here, you’re just another Indian—whether you like it or not. It’s kind of like when Indians go on about being from a specific caste. Really, who gives a shit? Is an AI really going to get treated any better in Canada, the States, or England because he’s a Brahmin? That’s the beauty of these countries: Canadians don’t care about that kind of caste crap—we’re all just brown to them.

Back in the mid-eighteenth century, the British realized that it was going to be impossible to rule more than 120 million Indians with just forty thousand or so Brits, so they came up with a program to intermarry with the locals to strengthen their hold on the country. It was always a British male with an Indian female—anything else would have been scandalous. And, as my dad always liked to point out, the children of an Indian male and British female were called Eurasian and not Anglo-Indian. Ben Kingsley is Eurasian, since his father’s Indian and his mom is English. See? Anglo-Indian, Eurasian—they’re not the same thing.

English is the first language for Anglo-Indians, even in India. Hindi was only spoken to the servants or coworkers—or when my parents didn’t want me to know what they were saying. My grandmother’s Hindi was so bad that her boss asked her to please not speak it. AI’s are Christian by religion—either Anglican or Catholic, for the most part. We don’t consider ourselves converts. Obviously, at some point we were converted, but that was generations ago through intermarriage, and it will be through intermarriage that the very small community of AI’s will eventually become extinct. I don’t say this in a negative way. It’s not as if I’m asking for a telethon to save the Anglo-Indians, it’s just a statement of fact.

While the British were in India, the Anglo-Indians were sort of middle managers. They spoke like the British and looked like the Indians. They could communicate with the locals and behave like the foreigners. They enjoyed good jobs in the railways, customs, post, and telegraph, and as teachers. Some even ended up as entertainers—as bandleaders, singers, and actors. Engelbert Humperdinck, Cliff Richard, and Merle Oberon (’30s movie star) are noted AI’s, although I don’t think they publicize it that much.

When the British left India in 1947, Anglo-Indians were at loose ends. Job opportunities, especially for the men, were difficult to get and the Anglo-Indians began leaving India—coming to Australia, England, Canada, and even some to the States.

One of the most commonly asked questions I get is "What’s your real name?" Thing is, I usually get this question from Indians, not from white people. What can I say? If you don’t get my name, you’ll need to check in with my brother, Clayton, or my mom and dad, Maureen and Eric.

Speaking of Mom and Dad, I guess that’s where my story really starts. My dad, Eric Peters, was born in Bombay in 1925. Dad’s mom died a few months after he was born, from complications connected to his birth. His father, James Peters, had moved to Bombay from Madras and worked as a telegraph operator for the railways. My grandfather hated the big city; he found it too dirty and crowded. In 1935, he packed up my dad, Dad’s older brother, Arthur, and their ten-day-old baby sister, Eileen, as well as my grandfather’s new wife, Blossom, and moved to the small village of Burhanpur in the middle of India. (Burhanpur is where Mumtaz Mahal, the third and most beloved wife of the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan I, died and remained until Shah Jahan had completed the Taj Mahal as her mausoleum.) Since my grandfather worked for the railways, he could basically transfer wherever he wanted—as long as it was on a rail route.

My grandfather James Peters.

My grandfather bought twenty acres of land in the countryside, about a kilometer from the train station and outside of the village of Burhanpur. He built a large, open bungalow surrounded by lemon and mango trees. He became a gentleman farmer who grew peanuts, cotton, and wheat. He acquired two horses, a couple of bulls, goats, and buffaloes. He also kept a number of greyhounds, whippets, and German shepherds. The dogs came in handy for the family’s frequent hunting excursions in the neighboring hills.

James Peters (left), my father (right), and my cousin James as a child.

To hear my dad tell it, his childhood in Burhanpur was the absolute best of times—hunting, camping, fishing, sleeping outdoors, surrounded by his boarding-school friends, cousins, siblings, and of course his dad, whom my father idolized. My grandfather was almost six feet tall, compared to my dad’s five-foot-six or so. I guess that’s where I get my height from—not that I’m that tall, but I am the tallest guy in my relatively short family.

After serving as a radio operator during the war, Dad eventually moved to Calcutta but continued to go back and forth to his beloved Burhanpur. It was in Calcutta, at the age of thirty-nine, that Dad met Mom. Mom was a fair-skinned, ninety-three-pound beauty with thick black hair and a taste for the latest Western dresses, most of them handmade by her seamstress grandmother. For Dad, it was love at first sight. He used to see my mom around town and decided that she was the one. Dad was a womanizer, sixteen years her senior. Dad would see Mom on a rickshaw and would follow right behind on his scooter, honking the horn to make the rickshaw man run faster. Mom would get fuming mad and was convinced that Dad was an ass.

The Anglo-Indian lifestyle in Calcutta. The very cool KK (middle, with sunglasses) and my grandmother Sheila (far right, with sunglasses and cigarette).

One night, at their mutual friend Rene’s flat, Dad decided that it was time to make his move. Rene made the introduction. Mom was unimpressed; however, they both lingered at the party long enough that it started to get dark, and too late for Mom to get back to her family’s flat. Dad swooped in and offered her a ride home on the back of his scooter, and Mom accepted . . . reluctantly. What would her mother say when she arrived home riding on the back of a scooter with a much older man, a man who was only a year younger than her own mother?

It didn’t take long for Mom to see that Dad was a bit of a show-off but not a complete jerk, and when he started regularly taking her on the back of his scooter, the poor rickshaw man was out of a job. After a few more rides home, Mom eventually said to Dad, I think you’d better come in and meet my mother. He had his foot in the door.

It didn’t take long for Mom to see that Dad was a bit of a show-off but not a complete jerk.

Dad walked into the one-bedroom flat on Ganesh-Chandra Avenue that housed my mom; her older brother Maurice and younger brother Roger; my grandmother’s second husband, the very cool KK (more on him in a minute); my great-grandmother Jessie; and my striking grandmother Sheila. My grandmother sized him up, and when he left, she declared she was unimpressed by this scooter-man courting her daughter. First, he was too old, and second, he was Protestant. It’s not a good match, she warned Mom, adding, He’s a Freemason. They’re devil worshippers. I’m not sure what happened next, but somehow, between Dad being a jerk and now a devil worshipper, Mom was smitten.

Let me tell you about my mom’s stepfather, KK, whose real name was Kewal Kohli. He was a Punjabi Hindu who married my grandmother after she divorced my grandfather Christopher Waike. We called him Dadda, but to everyone else he was just KK.

My grandfather Christopher had taken up with another woman when my mom was in her early teens, and my grandmother filed for divorce. KK took Christopher’s place. He adored my grandmother and she adored him. He was the coolest guy I have ever met. Even as a small child, I could see that this guy was an operator. He knew how to work a room and could get things done. Running late for a flight? KK could get you right through the usual customs formalities and straight to the gate without any hassles. He was charismatic and charming. Being a Hindu never seemed to be any issue. I remember visiting him as a kid in 1975 and seeing this huge portrait of Sai Baba (a Hindu holy man) in their flat on Elliot Road. There was also this small altar with a statue of Jesus, Mary, and other Catholic icons. I remember being a little creeped out by the altar. I don’t know why, but there was just something scary about it.

But back when Dad was courting Mom, he was not KK’s first choice of marriage partners for her. KK had hoped to make a match of his own for his daughter. Eventually, though, he too was won over by Dad and accepted him into the family.

•••

So back to Mom being smitten . . . Once Dad realized he was making progress with this woman, he immediately went back to his father and told him, Dad, I’ve met her, the girl of my dreams.

"You mean you’ve met the right girl again?"

Dad was a bit of a player, which explains why he wasn’t married at the age of thirty-nine. Before he met Mom, he was having a great time in Calcutta and had developed something of a reputation as a playboy—like father, like son? Anyhow, this wasn’t the first time he’d told his dad he’d met the woman of his dreams.

This one is different. She’s the one, Dad said.

Granddad asked, How old is she?

Sixteen years younger than me.

Good choice, son!

•••

Mom and Dad were married on December 28, 1963. One hundred and fifty people attended the wedding at St. Francis Xavier Church in the Bowbazar section of Calcutta. Mom kept Dad waiting half an hour at the church, while his friends took bets on whether she would show up. After the wedding, they took bets as to how long the marriage would last. According to Mom, people said it wouldn’t last because of the age difference. According to Dad, people said it wouldn’t last because he was Protestant and Mom was Catholic. The church sanctioned the marriage only on the basis that any children be raised Catholic. When Dad died in 2004, they had been married forty years.

Mom and Dad got a small one-bedroom flat on Theatre Road, which they shared with Dad’s pal Trevor Lewis. Work opportunities were slim, and Dad knew that they and their still-unborn children would have better opportunities overseas. Dad wanted to go to England, where a lot of his pals had already moved and were doing well. Mom had no intention of setting foot on British soil and warned Dad that if he went to England, he’d be going alone. She hated gray and gloomy weather and had heard stories of how badly the Tommies—British soldiers in India—had once treated her beloved Grandmother Jessie when she had worked for the Women’s Army Corps during the war. Every day, the WAC would be picked up by truck and taken to various locations around Calcutta. On one particular day, a Tommy thought he’d be smart and told the driver to accelerate just as Jessie was getting on. The truck lurched forward, and Jessie landed on her face, chipping a tooth and scraping her skin. She pulled the laughing Tommy down from the truck and slapped him. My very tough great-grandmother made sure that she wouldn’t be disrespected by the Tommies ever again. Mom had also seen the 1935 version of the film David Copperfield several times, and this too had put her off of England.

Mom and Dad on their wedding day.

Now that England was off the table, my parents began to explore other options. Some Anglo-Indians were leaving for Australia, but it never occurred to Mom and Dad to move there. Of course, the United States was also an option, but my father, who was always very aware of social and political climates, felt that a darker, brown-skinned man stepping into that country in the mid-’60s would be asking for trouble. He knew what street riots looked like—having seen the Hindu—Muslim riots in India in 1947—and he was well aware of what was happening with the civil rights movement in the United States. He knew what Martin Luther King and Malcolm X were doing. Having seen India go through its growing pains after independence, and self-conscious about his own skin color, it didn’t make a lot of sense to him to try to raise a family in the States.

Word began to spread among Anglo-Indians about another country that had opened its doors: Canada. It was a young country that needed an educated workforce to grow, and while many immigrants arriving there couldn’t speak English, Mom and Dad were fluent. They should get in, no problem—right?

When my father was alive, he’d occasionally tell me stories of those early years, and I have to say that even though decades had passed since his arrival in Canada, his memories of those days never lost their edge. Even before Dad arrived in this country, he had to face the hard truth about what it would be like as a new immigrant in Canada. In his first encounter with a Canadian consular representative working in Calcutta, whose job it was to screen immigration candidates, my dad was told, matter-of-factly, You’ll never get a job in Canada, Mr. Peters. You’re just too old. My father was thirty-nine, going on forty.

My dad was told, matter-of-factly, You’ll never get a job in Canada, Mr. Peters. You’re just too old.

That’s okay, I’ll be fine, my father replied.

Mr. Walker, the immigration officer, continued: What Canada needs and wants is young people. They want people who speak English.

My dad stared dumbfounded and said, And what the bloody hell am I speaking to you in? I’m speaking to you in English, aren’t I?

Mr. Walker didn’t have a comeback. My father railed. Now tell me, you have immigrants already in Canada who don’t speak English, do you not? How come they’re allowed in?

They’re cheap labor. They’re the construction workers, and they clean the streets. My dad shrugged his shoulders and asked, "So you’re discriminating against me because I speak English?"

That was my dad’s first encounter with a government official. Amazingly, my mom and dad were accepted into the country, under the condition that my mother, who was pregnant with my brother at the time, give birth to the child in India. My father’s sister, Eileen, had also applied to emigrate and was accepted.

In 1965, less than a year after my big brother, Clayton, was born, my parents picked up and left, choosing Canada as the country in which they would raise my brother and later have me.

•••

Eric and Maureen Peters landed in Toronto’s west end on August 30, 1965. They had with them their savings—a grand total of $100—and two steamer trunks that contained all of their wedding gifts, Mom’s best linen . . . and a tiger skin from Dad’s last big hunt in India. For

Reviews for Call Me Russell

[elizajane_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Reason for Reading: I don't usually read current celebrity's (who are in the prime of their careers) memoirs but Russell Peters is a bit different. I think he's the best Canadian stand-up comic out there; and he is 100% Canadian born and bred but if you've never heard of him and notice the book cover there you'll notice he is also Indian. His humour is based on race and I thought his story would be interesting.Russell Peters memoir didn't disappoint my expectations. Some may be expecting a funny book, but this is not an extension of his act. Besides a couple of chapters beginning with a famous routine, the book is a straightforward narrative of Russell's life experience so far. He has some funny stories to tell here and there, like when he was punk'd by the King of Jordan, but this is not a funny book in the way you might expect from a comic.The most interesting part of this book is Russell's childhood, which is the source of a lot of his material. His experience as a first generation Canadian to his immigrant Indian parents is as entertaining as I had expected. Russell even explains his particular cultural background of Catholic Anglo-Indian which he frequently refers to specifically and how it differs from other Indian heritages. He is proud of his race yet identifies as "Canadian"; he also identifies himself as Catholic but shows no signs of practicing. He recounts the racism he met growing up in the Canada of the 70's and 80's when the word "Paki" was used frequently as derogatory slang for anyone of brown colour from Indian/Arabian countries. (In fact, the word was so much a part of our culture that I admit to using it myself as a child/teenager, though never directed to a real-life person (as opposed to those on TV) as I lived in a completely white little town, with the only non-whites being the three Saudi Arabian doctors. However, personally I just thought the P- word (which is never used anymore in decent company) was a short form for Pakistani and I would correct anyone if they used it for someone I knew was from a different country, ie. our three doctors. I know, I was naive about those things.) The stories of his Dad who had more of a British accent than the Indian accent he uses in his act and his mom, who was a fair skinned Anglo-Indian who never really dealt with racism. People always thought she was what they were: Italian, Filipino, German, etc. I wish Peters had expanded on this part of his book and perhaps ended the book when he finally got his first big break in the US.The next part of the book that lists the gigs at clubs and improvs, then theatres and eventually moving up to touring on the road, then making it in the US, touring around the world, making DVDs etc. could be educational I expect for other inspiring Canadian comics. But otherwise was quite boring for me, except for the stories Russell threw in that were funny. As Russell describes his lifestyle as an adult and a stand-up comic he is fairly candid, never going into any details, but still letting us know his lifestyle was the typical male star's life of free women wherever he looked and he shows no shame or remorse for this part of his life though he does say he is engaged now (in fact married as of the writing of this review) and wants to settle down. I sure hope the girlfriend knew about all that before she read it in the book! There is language in the book, mostly dropping the f-bomb as if it were a common adjective and the sh- word, but this should be expected from anyone who knows his act which also contains adult language but not to the point of vulgarity, imho.All in all, an interesting story of how a Canadian kid of immigrant background and a visible minority made it big using his race as the basis of his humour and making a connection with all races in the end. As he says in the book (to paraphrase) he has lots of people from different ethnicities coming up to him and saying they totally relate to his immigrant father, *their* dad was just like him, they too had an "Indian dad". I can relate to this myself, having immigrant parents in the late 60's, even if they only came from England. It was the mindset of those parents to give their children a better life in Canada (not to Australia: too far away, not to the US: the civil rights violence was going on) and they brought their old-world values with them. I can soooo relate to Peters' famous "Beat Your Kids" routine which includes the "Somebody's Gonna Get Hurt Real Bad". I got quite a few of those "just in case" ones myself and my dad's words of choice were "someone's looking for a knuckle sandwich" or "someone's cruisin' for a bruisin'". He added the humour but I knew enough to smarten up! I'm glad to have read the book, but I wish he had stuck to his pre-famous days, expanded on the stories of his childhood and his parents, saving the rest for when he was old & gray and had more to tell.

[christineellei · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I have been a fan of Mr. Peters’ since I first heard his “Somebody gonna get a hurt” routine. Add to that the fact that he is proudly Canadian and my curiosity got the better of me. This book is filled with his trademark humour as well as some of his well-known lines from his stand-up routines. The humour is definitely expected, but the book also tells some heartbreaking stories of what is was like growing up “brown” in a predominantly white neighbourhood, the trials of being first generation Canadian as well as being the kid in school who did not quite fit in. It was interesting to learn about the process of writing comedy and the winding road travelled to become a top stand up comedian.

Mr. Peters is at the top of his career now, so this book cannot be totally described as a memoir, and he seems a bit young to have written an autobiography. There is a second book, so maybe he is writing his life story in instalments. The language of the book is conversational and the pictures from family albums are interesting. Towards the end of the book I found it became a little bit of a name-dropping who’s who, but still very readable.